Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

"Why didn't you fund that startup" is exactly the sort of question Mr. Wilson should be able to answer--and he did below, generally.

You're right that the thesis is a test. My question was because it wasn't clear that there was actually a way to fail the test, or at least I wasn't clear on what Mr. Wilson viewed as failing the test. I didn't ask why he didn't do something that hadn't occurred to him, I asked why we he didn't do something on which he makes a pretty deliberate decision.

As I mentioned, in my own experience I heard a lot of "it's a move-fast environment", and I realized that I had no idea what that meant. It's like saying "be tall"--meaningless without a baseline or a standard of comparison, and yet everyone kept throwing around the phrase like it was a concrete observation.



yes, it seems there are two kinds of thesis:

(1) a forward - must be falsifiable to filter

(2) a afterward - need-not-be-falsifiable cya (a/k/a rationalization)

Fred seems to be communicating a variant of (1) fairly credibly; although many VCs sgravitate toward variations of type (2).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: